28/11/2023
Refused to accept the award, by Jacinta Kerketta, an Adivasi poet.
Adivasi poet Jacinta Kerketta refused to accept the literary award "Jagriti Udyyaman Pratibha Samman" given by 'Aj-Tak' group. He said that the mainstream media was silent about Manipur for over 200 days. Mainstream media is silent about the torture, killing, eviction of tribals across the country. Jacinta's bold move is something to be proud of.
If you read the poetry of this forty-year-old poet from Oraon of Jharkhand, you will know not only the struggles and pains of the tribals, but also their sense of life, their philosophy of life. I will raise my pen against the attempt to strangle the mother tongue (Kurukh) of the Oraons. He wrote poetry in Hindi. A webpage with English translations of 13 of his poems has been maintained by researcher-professor Richa Nagar at the University of Minnesota, from where two English poems and that webpage URL. Given below.
Intezaar/ Waiting
They are waiting for us to become civilized
And we are waiting for them to become human.
Kyon Mahua Tode Nahi Jate Ped Se?/ Why the Mahua is not Plucked from the Tree?
Mother, why do you wait all night
for the mahua to drop?
Why don't you not
just pluck all the mahua from the tree?
Mother says –
They live in the womb all night long.
When the time for their birth comes
They fall by themselves to the earth.
At dawn, when they're soaked in the dew
We pick them up and bring them home.
When the tree is going through
Labor pains all night long
Tell me, how I can
shake the branch hard?
Say, how I can forcibly
pluck the mahua from a tree?
We just wait
Because we love them.
https://richa.nagar.umn.edu/publications/translations-%E0%A4%85%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%A6/thirteen-poems?fbclid=IwAR3UJQAnpw_UcNIMBBW3SoGrhLhJwP0RGWp1mAYuSRAMU6S68OYF6cXD0u0
Original Post - Anusilan Patrika